New Eyes

"How did you manage? How were you able to face the certainty that someday he would die? Because you knew... How were you able to deal with the pain of his death?" We hang up and I answered her questions silently and only to myself: "God... He is how." That very moment, I was acknowledging that God was the one to thank for my endurance and survival. Had my friend asked me months ago, that would not have been the answer to myself nor to anyone else. Months ago, I was still angry at the fact that a mother could survive the death of her child. It felt like a cruel joke that we humans could be so resilient. How was it possible that I would not turn into dust as well? As Anglican pastor and author Tish Harrison Warren points out, "For every mother enraptured by her child's first smile, there is another mother whose [child] struggles for his final breath... In all our lives, from the happiest to the most tragic, the circumstantial evidence for God's goodness i...

Si el número de personas que la pasó a ver es indicativo de cuánto se le amaba, Mari era muy amada. Apuesto que el personal del hospital nunca había presenciado que a un ciudadano común y corriente lo visitaran tantos. Mari misma nos había dicho que quería morir rodeada de la familia, pero me imagino que esta cantidad rebasó sus propias expectativas. Mari era huérfana, pero su "familia" era enorme. La gente que vino a verla quería orar por ella, despedirse, expresarle su aprecio y admiración. No faltó quien todavía esperara y clamara por un milagro, o que cuestionara por qué ya no se le estaba haciendo nada y, por supuesto, no faltó quien, en su afán de consolar, nos dijera poniéndonos la mano en el hombro: "A veces es difícil comprender los planes del Señor, pero Él sabe por qué hace las cosas". Se iban unos, llegaban otros. Algunos venían solos, otros en grupo. Unos oraron por ella, otros le cantaron y otros le leyeron la Biblia. Todos buscaban el modo de bendecir...

Saturday, September 26th, 2020 was a very good day, a day like I hadn't enjoyed in a very long time.  "Can we go to the nearby Goodwill store? I wanna see if they have dumbbells." After my initial —and predictable— statement to the contrary of the likelihood, Daniel reminded me that he had found a 15-pound kettle bell in a Goodwill store.  "But we'll go to Trader Joe's afterwards," I warned. "At this age, you have to follow his lead." The words of the child life specialist have proven to be true; nothing else works. Daniel's awkwardness with us disappears only when we do things on his terms.  Right now, only a handful of things get him excited: weight lifting, playing videogames with his friends, finding free stuff in the neighborhood alleys, and buying sports equipment for cheap.  "Mami, I really wanna get this. Hit me! You won't hurt me." Daniel had put on his most recent treasured Goodwill finding: a blue punching vest. By ...

"Fight for disability rights and disability pride so expecting parents won't be afraid after a diagnosis..." These words by an anonymous woman born with a genetic condition have stayed with me since I read her essay  Where Love Ends . It struck me that she would list disability pride as one way to prevent abortions. In her essay, she points to the fact that in the United States parents abort two-thirds of fetuses diagnosed with Down Syndrome. She also talks about her experience with a doctor who asked if she was planning to have children, and who informed her that nowadays there were treatments for ensuring that children did not have her condition. "I naively asked what the treatment was," she says. "It was early detection of the genetic mutation in fetuses, and abortion. Of course, I should have known."  I tried to put myself in her shoes. What would it be like to be told that they can prevent people like you from being born? There might be some disab...

Conozco este lugar desde niña. Frente a este puesto donde cuelgan culebras de longaniza y bolsas con chicharrón, está el del pollo. Unos cuantos pollos cuelgan pálidos de las patas mientras la dueña espanta las moscas que tratan de aterrizar sobre unas pechugas. Ahí sigue la señora del queso y la crema y ahí es donde se sentaba la viejecita que vendía nanches, ciruelas y bolsas de verdura picada. También sigue abierto el puesto de veladoras, santitos, menjurjes y hierbas para hacer limpias y en la otra entrada está la señora de los bolillos. ¿Cómo vivirá esta gente? ¿Ganarán lo necesario? Un gato callejero pasa escurridizo y me saca de mis pensamientos. Mi mamá está lista. Tomo la bolsa del mandado, nos despedimos de Gaby, el carnicero, y continuamos. A unos cuantos pasos más al fondo, casi como un oasis, está nuestro destino principal: el puesto de frutas y verduras. Allí nos espera mi papá con el periódico en una mano y un jugo de toronja en la otra. Aquí cuelgan pencas de plátanos t...

When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." John 11:32 I haven't fallen at his feet. I haven't said, "Lord, if you had been here, my son would not have died." I haven't praised his name and declared, "The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away." Yet I have screamed like Job: " People are dying right and left, groaning in torment.   The wretched cry out for help  and God does nothing, acts like nothing’s wrong!" I was able to steady my feet before my son died on the foundation of faith, faith in a God who gives, but does not take away. When he left, so did hope. My footsteps were no longer firm. He died, and she was next. She named and claimed. She believed He could heal her... and all I could say to myself was: "The wretched cry out for help and God does nothing..." I joined Job in calling God names, "The One Who Doesn't...

Hacía años que no me dedicaba de lleno a lavar ropa, solo una que otra vez, en circunstancias extraordinarias. ¡Qué lujo! La montaña de ropa se acumulaba en el cesto hasta verse como el Pico de Orizaba y de repente, ¡fum! desaparecía. Como si llegara con pico y pala, y a tiempo para evitar una erupción, Mari comenzaba a separar la ropa: la de Daniel, la de Caleb, la de Pablo, la mía; la blanca por aquí, la de color por allá, la ropa íntima, las sábanas... Poco a poco los montículos pasaban de la lavadora a la secadora y de la secadora al cesto donde Mari ponía la ropa ya doblada para regresarla a sus respectivos cajones. Mari tenía un método y era implacable: ¡Cuidado con revolver la ropa! ¡Sobre todo la de su Chavi (de la palabra chubby, que significa regordete en inglés). Ese era el apodo con que Mari bautizó a mi hijo Caleb. Mari movió montañas y no solo de ropa. Mari quedó huérfana a los 12 años y prácticamente desamparada. Tuvo que aprender a valerse por sí misma emocional y ...